What conservatives have to do, in my view, is not demonize government, but to champion limited government. If government can do tangible practical things that help everyone, while balancing its budget, it’s doing what conservatives think it should. Smart, practical initiatives that address problems that the private sector has failed at: what else is government for? The rest is ideology – and it seems to be all the Republicans have left.

How is it limited government, though, if the government is spending billions of dollars to get people to buy new cars? What does limited government even mean if not a government that limits itself in what it does? A government that limits itself to its constitutionally-definedÂ role?

Also, Sullivan threw in a critical caveat that isn’t being met here: “balancing its budget.”

Over at NRO’s The Corner, they’re also talking about Cash for Clunkers. Benjamin Zycher spilled his plans for the program when he discovered that the car he wanted to get didn’t qualify:

And so I asked the question on the minds of millions of my fellow concerned citizens: How can I get my snout into this trough? Easy: I buy a small car qualifying for the $4,500, and keep it for a few months until the cash-for-clunkers boondoggle has run its course. At that point, the supply of used cars will have shrunk and their prices driven up; I will sell the almost-new small car for what I paid for it ($12,629 last Saturday) or more, at worst having driven it for free, and then buy the truck I covet.

I am deeply ashamed of myself, having worked the system while the poor get shafted by higher prices for the used cars they demand and by higher prices for the used parts needed to repair them. (Under the rules, the clunker engines have to be destroyed, the real-life Beltway version of the old joke about the fate of dairy farming under socialism: The government takes the milk and shoots the cows.) This is hardly the first time â€” nor will it be the last â€” that modern environmentalism has harmed those less fortunate.

â€œWOLF BLITZER: Do you think [Sarah Palin]has a future nationally as a presidential candidate?

BILL MAHER: I donâ€™t know about a presidential candidate, but I would never put anything past this stupid countryâ€¦.

BLITZER: So, uh, people are already complaining that youâ€™re calling the United States a stupid country. Iâ€™m giving you a chance to clarify.

MAHER: I donâ€™t need to clarify. It is.

BLITZER: Tell me why you think the United States is a stupid country.

MAHER: Because Sarah Palin could be president. [laughs] Do I need to clarify any more? Itâ€™s a big country, thatâ€™s the great thing about it. Thereâ€™s 300 million people here. So, uh, within this large country, there are tens of millions of very bright, intelligent people. You know, the ones who are watching us. Not the ones who are writing the emails. But, you know, in general, um, gosh, uh, you know, this country just gets dumber and dumber by the day, and, uh, I donâ€™t think I have time on your show to list all the reasons.

Arianna,Â I suggest that you watch Bill Oâ€™Reilly or Sean Hannity for some edgy, unapologetic and INTELLIGENT commentary rooted in traditional American values.

I had the opportunity to meet Bill Maher a few years ago and ask him what he thought of the United Nations in view of the Bush administrationâ€™s skepticism aboutÂ the UNâ€™sÂ capacity to easeÂ international tensions. (Indeed, the UN has proved itself, time and again, to be a politically impotent institution whose principal hallmark is its propensity for bashing the United States and Israel.) Without the benefit of a teleprompterÂ in front of him,Â Maher gave a completely incoherent answer that would have made Sarah Palinâ€™s worst moments in her Katie Couric interview shine by comparison.

The man is a fool who thinks of himself as an intellectual worthy of respect, when in fact he does nothing more than parrotÂ an endless parade ofÂ oh-so-predictable leftistÂ talking points about the purported glories of socialized medicine, the greed of big bad corporations that areÂ ruining America, the dangers of global warming,Â theÂ horrors of theÂ Bush war-on-terror policies (which prevented another 9/11, incidentally),Â etc.

Last night on Fox News, Sean HannityÂ highlighted a Harperâ€™s magazine article detailing theÂ many diplomatic posts that President Obama (who raked in some $600 million in contributions to his presidential campaign)Â has awarded to major campaign donors. In honor of the â€œCash for Clunkersâ€ program, one might call this â€œDonations for Diplomacy.â€

According to Harperâ€™s:

Donald Beyer, a car dealer from Northern Virginia, was appointed as Obamaâ€™s ambassador to Switzerland. One of Obamaâ€™s earliest and most active supporters in Virginia, Beyer is reportedly responsible for raising $500,000 for the Obama campaign.

Don Beyer Volvo is offering a new promotion. If you buy one of their cars, the dealership will give you free tickets to Al Goreâ€™s global warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. Mr. Beyer is a Democrat in good standing, having been lieutenant governor of Virginia and national treasurer of the Dean for America campaign, so he must be down with the global warming program.

But giving away movie tickets with the purchase of every climate-destroying luxury automobile (the 2005 Volvo XC90 gets 15 mpg in the city and 20 mpg on the highway) probably isnâ€™t, in the long run, the most effective way to save the planet.

Elements of the left blogosphere are in a tizzyâ€”a-twitter, might be a better way of phrasing it, given the frequency of the postsâ€”with conspiracy theories about the execrableKeith Olbermann and his longstanding feud with Foxâ€™s Bill Oâ€™Reilly.